“I was accustomed to commentary from my Dark Associate, and quite often my first sight of a crime scene would be punctuated by sly whispers of admiration or amusement, but this — it was clearly a sound of distress, and I did not know what to make of it.”
Dexter Morgan is your friendly neighborhood sociopath with two differences, he kills only bad people that the law can’t touch and he genuinely likes children. But now that the Dark Passenger has gone into hiding, will he ever be able to enjoy a bloody night’s work again?
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TITLE:
DEXTER IN THE DARK
WRITER:
by Jeff Lindsay
SERIES:
The Dexter Series #3
GENRE:
Horror Fiction, Thriller.
DESCRIPTORS:
Forensic Scientists, Fiction, Serial Murderers, Serial Murders, Miami, Florida, Vigilantes, Psychological, Suspense, Ritual Killings, Moloch, The Watcher, The Helper, Marriage Plans, Wedding Ceremony, Children, Sacrifice, Terrorize, Pain, The Dark Passenger,
CHARACTERS
Dexter Morgan, A blood-spatter specialist who moonlights as a serial killer.
Deborah Morgan, Miami vice cop who wants to be a homicide detective.
The Dark Passenger, The need Dexter has to kill — or is it something more?
Harry Morgan, Dexter’s foster father, a cop who formulated the Code of Harry.
Cody, Rita’s son who may be growing up to be a sociopath and serial killer
Astor, Rita’s daughter who may be growing up to be a sociopath.
Rita, Dexter’s girlfriend who is still recovering from a bad marriage.
SUMMARY:
In the summary about Dearly Devoted Dexter, I wrote “For the most part the supernatural element was suppressed in this story. It will be interesting to see if Lindsay develops this further.” Well, boy did the Dark Passenger get developed in this story.
Gone are Dexter’s insights into the criminal mind, gone is his fearlessness (Deborah’s driving now terrifies him) and gone is the drive to slip out into the moonlit night and dance with his knives, meting out death to the deserved. Dexter wants the Dark Companion back and now, for the first time ever, he begins to question what it is, where it came from and how can he coax it back? And also — how is it’s flight tied into the ritualistic crime scene?
What Dexter doesn’t realize is that he is being watched — stalked by a predator that seeks to drive him, break him down by terrorizing him, leading him with cryptic clues and, eventually, kill him. And not just him, for the Watycher has seen Cody and Astor and knows they must be taken too.
Perhaps worst of all . . . Rita is in full swing planning her marriage and honeymoon with Dexter Morgan, and he has no idea how he can possibly escape.
APPEAL:
Dexter in the Dark is a crime novel with a mystery thrown in and a character study of a sociopath who bends his dark obsessions to killing bad people instead of innocent people. Lindsay walks a difficult line here because as Dex is the narrator and the protagonist, the reader needs to like him — if not identify with him — in order to enjoy the story. Yet by the very definition of sociopath, Dex has no human emotions — he fakes being human.
Lindsay solves the problem with humor, acerbic wit, a sense of charm (even if it is just an act) and the Code of Harry which gains our sympathy. After all, he is killing the bad people. I think of it like the Spock phenomenon — millions of women loved Spock even though he is an emotionless, logic driven alien — yet he’s humanized by the humor (usually he fellow shipmates at his expense) and his duty to Starfleet.
Dexter in the Dark is told mostly in first person past tense from Dexter’s point of view — Dexter narrates, much like a private investigator novel. Lindsay lets you in to the mind of his character and constantly reminds you that he is not human — but a monster in human disguise. Dexter is very open and honest about this throughout the story. He talks about the things he does to “fake” being human.
“. . .the Dark Passenger clamored at me that I had been singled out by something with an unhealthy interest in special wonderful me. . . “
However, this time out, Dexter’s narrative is accompanied by two others. One is in third person, past tense limited omnsicence — only from the point of view of the Watcher — the one who is stalking and terrorizing everybody’s favorite serial killer. It shows up at the end of a chapter or a second but makes infrequent appearences. The other narrative is in italics type and when it shows up, it can be at the beginning or end of a chapter, once was it’s own section. This narrative is also third person past tense limited omnsicence — told exclusively from the point of view of something eternal, something that watches life evolve on Earth and hates it, something that is called It (with a capital I). It is almost mythic in structure and its story runs parallel to Dexter’s story parceling out information a little at a time.
Part of the book’s horror is that Lindsay does such a good job of making us like Dexter and yet not denying his monstrousness. When I identify with the monster — and realize that I’m identifying with it — I feel a sense of creepy vertigo. Not as rich as the outright scare but it is fun in its own right. This story had a strong supernatural element in.
I was only marginally interested in the Dexter series before this book came out. My fellow librarians loved the book — even one who doesn’t like gory stories or serial killers — but the way the described the Dark Passenger, I assumed it was nothing more than a name he gave his dark, murderous impulses. When Dexter in the Dark was published my interest grew because for the Dark Passenger to disappear, meant it might have an existence independent from Dexter — or it could be just a gimick. It still took over nine months before I started reading the series. I love it. I loved Dexter in the Dark. It was much more than I could have hoped for and definitely a horror novel.
Unfortunately many people who loved the first two books were disappointed by the third novel. If you can’t tolerate a dose of supernatural in your Dexter story, skip this book.
NOTES:
Showtime has made a television series called Dexter. The first season loosely followed Darkly Dreaming Dexter and the following two seasons took off with their stories growing out of the first season. Although this seems to be the same serial killer we all know and love, his life goes in different — yet interesting — directions from the novel series.
To view the entire Dexter series in book and on DVD, check out “Dreaming of Dexter” on The Lair of the Undead Rat.
READALIKES:
One of the most famous crime/mystery novels involving a sociopathic protagonist is the Ripley series by Patricia Highsmith (sometimes called the Ripliad) which includes The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water. Although suffused with dark humor, Highsmith’s books are not as funny as the Dexter series and have no supernatural element. Certainly these would be wonderful stories to read when you take a break from reading horror.
(This post originally appeared in . . . With Intent to Commit Horror.)
